Illusions

by Janet Dailey

  Janet Dailey

  Illusions

  Contents

  Prologue

  THAT BASTARD LUCAS WAYNE was going to pay for this,…

  Chapter One

  THE RINGING OF THE TELEPHONE jarred Delaney Wescott from a…

  Chapter Two

  DELANEY PROCEEDED DOWN THE plane’s aisle until she reached their…

  Chapter Three

  THE TAXI PULLED CLOSE TO THE curb and stopped in…

  Chapter Four

  DELANEY SAT AT A CONTEMPORARY rosewood desk, an elbow idly…

  Chapter Five

  ANTICIPATING THE HORDE OF REPORTERS and photographers waiting outside the…

  Chapter Six

  MORNING BROUGHT SMOG AND A high thin overcast to block…

  Chapter Seven

  MORNING LIGHT STREAMED THROUGH the lace curtains at the hotel…

  Chapter Eight

  GLENDA PETERS PEERED DOWN at Delaney over the top of…

  Chapter Nine

  ON FRIDAY, FOUR DAYS AFTER mailing the jewelry lists, the…

  Chapter Ten

  AS DELANEY GAVE THE SALAD A final toss, the oversized…

  Chapter Eleven

  THAT NIGHT MARKED THE START of the most idyllic ten…

  Chapter Twelve

  THE NARROW DRIVE CURVED toward a sprawling, contemporary-styled house that…

  Chapter Thirteen

  DELANEY’s WAKE-UP CALL came precisely at six-thirty. After a night…

  Chapter Fourteen

  EARLY ON THE MORNING OF the third day in Aspen…

  Chapter Fifteen

  SCARVES OF FUCHSIA-TINTED CLOUDS trailed across the sky in the…

  Chapter Sixteen

  MORNING SWELLED ACROSS THE mountains in warm, full waves of…

  Chapter Seventeen

  TWENTY MINUTES LATER, THEY walked into the air-conditioned cool of…

  Chapter Eighteen

  OUTSIDE THE EXCLUSIVE STARWOOD estate, a string of Mercedes, Bentleys…

  Chapter Nineteen

  SCUDDING CLOUDS RACED ACROSS the face of the late-afternoon sun…

  Chapter Twenty

  ALONE IN THE POLICE INTERROGATION room, Delaney pushed her empty…

  Chapter Twenty-One

  DELANEY WAKENED TO THE VAGUE murmur of voices. She rolled…

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  THE MANDATORY READING OF HER Miranda rights, the taking of…

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  MORNING SUNLIGHT SHAFTED THROUGH the cotton-wood trees that shaded the…

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  SHORTLY AFTER ONE O’CLOCK, Riley dropped Delaney off at the…

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  USING HER KEY TO THE condo, Delaney unlocked the door.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  THE WORKMEN INSTALLING THE security gate were a welcome sight…

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  DENSE CLOUDS HUNG LOW, concealing the peaks of the Elk…

  About the Author

  Praise

  Other Books by Janet Dailey

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  PROLOGUE

  THAT BASTARD LUCAS WAYNE was going to pay for this, Rina Cole vowed for the hundredth time, seething with suppressed fury. Again she caressed the solid shape of the pearl-handled .38 tucked inside her purse and smiled, visualizing the look on his face when she pointed it at him.

  Would he recognize it as the gun he had given her? She hoped so. She dearly hoped so. It was one of the few gifts Luke had given her and now she was going to give it back—not the gun itself, only the bullets.

  With the malicious smile still curving her lushly full lips, Rina looked out the tinted passenger window as the sleek limousine glided along Madison Avenue, venturing into Manhattan’s fashionable Upper East Side. All was quiet, even properly sedate, at this late time of night. Streetlights intermittently broke the darkness and traffic was light, almost nonexistent, except for a cruising cab and a rumbling garbage truck.

  The limousine slowed to make its turn onto 76th Street. Rina leaned forward, tensing in a mix of rage and eagerness at the familiar sight of the Carlyle Hotel, where Lucas Wayne was staying in his usual suite.

  But he wasn’t alone. He had a young blonde actress-bitch with him, some no-name little slut who had a small role in the movie he was currently filming in New York. Did he really think she wouldn’t find out about it, that she wouldn’t be told?

  She wasn’t some nobody to be treated like dirt. She was Rina Cole. She’d had a wall of platinum albums before he ever made his first record. She was the one who gave him his first big break in films. The bastard owed her!

  The limousine rolled to a stop. The liveried doorman stepped up and opened the passenger door. Recognition flashed instantly in his face when he saw her.

  “Welcome back to the Carlyle, Miss Cole.”

  His greeting went unanswered as she swept past him without a glance, her fingers curled around the clasp of her purse, the gun heavy inside the bag. Intent on her mission, she walked straight to the front door, her stiletto heels clicking on the concrete.

  Inside the hotel, she crossed the dimmed lobby with its antiques and tapestries and went directly to the bank of elevators. No one stopped her. She was Rina Cole.

  The muted wail of a siren somewhere in the city filtered into the suite’s darkened bedroom. A moment ago the sound would have mingled with panting moans. Now it joined with a long, blissful sigh that came from the naked blonde lying next to Lucas Wayne in the king-size bed. She turned toward him, rolling onto her right side and sliding a hand over his bare chest.

  “Luke baby, you are incredible,” she said in a purring voice. “I feel just like some deliciously naughty rag doll. You do know how to rob a girl of her inhibitions.”

  “It was good, wasn’t it?” Lucas Wayne responded with a half-smile that masked his lack of interest in the requisite small talk afterwards.

  Personally, he preferred sex to be hot, wet, and wild. But two out of three wasn’t bad, especially when the blonde had made an adequate attempt to fake the third, even if it had been far from an Academy Award–winning performance.

  “You meanie, how can you say that?” She gave him a playful slap in protest. “It was better than good and you know it.”

  He chuckled and half-lifted, half-dragged her on top of him. “For a rehearsal, it was.”

  “Rehearsal?” she murmured lazily. “Now, there’s an idea.”

  “Isn’t it?” Lucas smiled and ran his hands up her rib cage to cup the underswell of her heavy breasts. Even though everything else about the blonde was petite, she had big, round breasts. Implants, he suspected, but it was too dark to detect the telltale scars.

  No lights burned in the bedroom, but the door stood slightly open, letting in the light from the lamp he always left burning in the suite’s living room. The dim glow from it played over the white mountains of her breasts, catching the sweat-slick sheen of her skin and capturing his attention.

  “Are you sure you’re up to it?” she teased, and rubbed against him in blatant invitation.

  “Keep wiggling like that and it will be lights, camera, action—take two.”

  “Maybe this time”—reaching back, she stroked a hand over his hardening shaft—“I should take it from the top.”

  “By all means,” he agreed.

  In the next second, the bedroom door flew the rest of the way open, flooding the room with light. Startled, Lucas pushed the blonde off him and raised up on one elbow to stare at the figure silhouetted by the light.

  “Who the hell—” he began, but one look at that wild mane of hair and the length of leg visible beneath the thigh-high skirt and Lucas Wayne knew who it was even before
that famous smoky voice shouted at him.

  “You dirty rotten bastard! I loved you and you used me!” Light glinted on metal, revealing the gun in her hand. It was aimed at him! “Never again, Luke. Never again.”

  The bitch was going to shoot. Fear surged through him in a rush of adrenaline. Without thinking, he grabbed the pillow under his head and threw it. The gun went off with a loud, explosive pop and the blonde screamed as Lucas launched himself at Rina Cole.

  Before she could bring the gun to bear again, he seized her wrist and ripped the gun from her grasp, tossing it to a far, dark corner of the room. Immediately Rina hurled herself at him, kicking and clawing and shouting obscenities.

  Lucas struggled to subdue her and yelled at the still screaming blonde, “Get the phone and call for some damned help!”

  Making little mewling sounds of terror, the blonde scrambled across the bed, dragging the top sheet with her and clutching it close in a vain attempt to hide her nakedness. With shaking hands she picked up the receiver and punched the operator’s number.

  “Help! We need help,” she sobbed into the phone. “Please. She tried to kill us!”

  ONE

  THE RINGING OF THE TELEPHONE jarred Delaney Wescott from a sound sleep. She rolled onto her side, dragging the top sheet with her and pulling it loose from the bottom of the bed in the process. Lifting her head, she looked around the darkened bedroom of her six-room bungalow, tucked away in one of the many canyons in the Santa Monica mountains above Malibu.

  A breeze spiced with sagey aromas stirred the white eyelet curtains at the window. Beyond, a full moon, silvery and bright, spilled its light through the glass panes onto the bed and the tangle of sleep-ravaged covers—not that Delaney considered herself a restless sleeper, merely an aggressive one.

  The phone rang again, its shrill sound in the night’s silence like an electric shock to her nerves. As she grabbed for the receiver, the ninety-pound German shepherd sleeping beside her in the queen-size bed growled a warning.

  “Shut up, Ollie. I’m not even close to rolling on you,” she muttered, then collapsed back against the pillow with phone in hand and scraped her long, tousled hair away from an ear. “Hello.”

  “Delaney? This is Arthur,” came the clipped reply.

  “Arthur.” She instantly recognized the resonant baritone voice of former colleague and contract lawyer Arthur Golden. Like her, he had left the firm of Jennings, Wade & Minski several years earlier, forming his own management company that catered to the needs of the entertainment business. Delaney peered sideways at the digital clock on the nightstand. “Arthur, it’s three in the morning.”

  “It’s six A.M. in New York—which isn’t exactly my favorite hour either, but crises seldom come at convenient times. All hell has broken loose out here, Delaney. I need you in New York as fast as you can get here.”

  Arthur Golden had long been known for being as dramatic as some of the actors he represented. He could turn mismatched socks into a crisis. But there was an edge to his voice, an underlying agitation that prompted Delaney to take him seriously. “What happened, Arthur?”

  “What happened?!! I’ll tell you what happened—that crazy, washed-up she-cat tried to kill my star client!”

  To Delaney’s knowledge, there was only one person in the roster of entertainers Arthur Golden represented who could currently be labeled a star and that was sex-throb—as Robin Leach loved to call him—Lucas Wayne. Five short years ago, rock singer Lucas Wayne had burst onto the music scene with a megahit called “Darlin’, Do Me.” Two platinum albums had followed in quick succession. Then, three years ago, the sexy, dark-haired, dark-eyed Lucas had made the rare transition from the music scene to the silver screen when he costarred in a major theatrical release with fading pop singer and actress Rina Cole, with whom he was reputedly having an affair. His second major release had been another smash this past Christmas, putting to rest any doubts that the first had been a fluke. Delaney vaguely remembered reading in the trades that Lucas Wayne was currently in New York wrapping up filming on his third movie.

  “Am I right to assume you’re referring to Lucas Wayne?” she asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Tell me what happened, Arthur.” Fully awake now, Delaney sat up, automatically hauling the top sheet with her and tucking it under her arms. She slept in the buff. Not for any sybaritic reason. The habit had simpler origins—she went to bed to sleep, not to wrestle with a nightgown that bunched around her middle, or a pair of pajamas that twisted and cut off her circulation. “Who tried to kill him? When? Where?”

  “It was Rina Cole.” He spoke the name slowly, with venom. “She tricked her way into his suite at the Carlyle tonight and caught Lucas in bed with a blonde—an actress named Tory or Victoria something.” He paused a split second. “Dear God, Delaney, every time I think what might have happened if Lucas hadn’t seen the gun before she started blasting away—” He stopped again, a faint, incredulous laugh filling the void. “He threw a pillow at her, Delaney. A pillow!”

  “Arthur, was anyone hurt?”

  “Fortunately, no. Lucas has some scratches on his arm where Rina clawed him when he wrestled the gun away from her, but that’s all.”

  “I assume the police were called in?”

  “The hotel security phoned them. There wasn’t any choice. She was berserk—screaming, kicking, clawing when the police took her away. In my opinion, they should have hauled her off to Bellevue in a straitjacket, but they took her to the station and booked her instead. She’s charged with disturbing the peace, assault with a deadly weapon, two counts of attempted murder, and resisting arrest. But we both know that one phone call and she’s out on bond. There is no way they will keep Rina Cole locked up.”

  Delaney silently agreed with him. “Where is Lucas now?”

  “With me, at my place on Park Avenue. Both he and the blonde actress. I thought it was wiser than leaving them at the Carlyle.”

  “True.” She rubbed the base of her left temple, feeling the tension start to build. “What’s the security setup in your building, Arthur?”

  “Two guards on duty at the desk downstairs. After midnight, the elevators are key-operated. There’s a cop outside the apartment door, but they won’t keep one there indefinitely. You know how the police are.”

  “I know.” She nodded. “That’s why I’m in business.”

  “And that’s why I called you,” he retorted. “Get out here—fast!”

  “I’ll be on the next plane.” She made a mental list of the things she would have to do between the time she hung up the phone and the time she stepped onto the plane—and tried not to think of the night’s sleep lost.

  “I’m counting on that.”

  “In the meantime, get an injunction filed against Rina Cole and have a restraining order issued,” she said. In itself, that wouldn’t be much protection, but it would provide a legal basis for keeping her away from Lucas. After Arthur agreed with the plan, she told him goodbye and pushed the receiver back onto its cradle.

  Delaney switched on the lamp and picked up the phone again, her fingers rapidly tapping out the memorized number. After the seventh ring, a grumpy male voice came on the line, demanding, “Yeah, what do you want?”

  Delaney smiled. “Up and at ’em, tiger. We’re on our way to the Big Apple.”

  There were two short beats of silence. “Is that you, Delaney?” came the accusation, followed by a groan. “Do you know it’s twenty minutes after three?”

  “Sorry to interrupt your beauty sleep, Riley—”

  “I can tell you’re all broken up over it.” Riley Owens smothered a yawn. “So tell me, what’s in the Big Apple other than a lot of worms?”

  Delaney filled him in.

  “Rina Cole?” The sleep was gone from his voice. “You aren’t getting us hooked in on some publicity stunt, are you?”

  The thought had occurred to her, but only briefly. “Arthur was scared. And he’s a lawyer, not an actor, Rile
y. The attempt was for real.”

  “All lawyers are actors,” he said, his tone changing as his professional side asserted itself.

  “If I remember right, one of the airlines has a flight to New York leaving around five or six in the morning. Make reservations for us.”

  “First class?”

  “In your dreams, Riley,” she mocked dryly.

  “It was worth a try.”

  “After you’ve made the reservations, call me back and give me the flight and time, then pull together all the facts you can on Rina Cole.”

  “No problem. I know everything there is to know about the lady. I even have all her albums.”

  “You do?” Delaney couldn’t conceal her surprise. She had never guessed that Riley’s taste in music ran to Rina Cole. It was easier to picture him listening to jazz, something mellow and laid-back, interspersed with unexpected riffs.

  “I do. I’m one of her biggest fans.”

  “Really? I never knew you liked her.”

  “There’s a lot of things about me you don’t know, Delaney,” Riley said. “For instance, I don’t care for New York in July. How about you?”

  “Don’t tell me you’re an old song buff, too?”

  “Fred Astaire.”

  Delaney shook her head. “I’ll meet you at the airport.”

  Riley chuckled over the phone. “See you there.”

  As she hung up, Delaney glanced at the big moon outside the bedroom window. Sighing, she turned to the black and tan German shepherd lying on the other side of the bed. “Full moons always bring out the crazies, don’t they, Ollie?”

  The dog opened one eye, peered at her briefly, then closed it again—playing his usual role as the strong, silent type.